7 Dec 1997
We cut the 6"x18"x20' beam yesterday - a lot of fun, no injuries, and it came out great. Thanks again for all the advice. First we (Dawn) cut off the end of the plank with a hand saw, two hours of work with a sharp crosscut saw. Then, having a large number of people willing to help, we did the main cut on the bandsaw with 20 hands on the plank. It went well but not that accurately ... it's hard to coordinate the efforts of so many people. My marking the curve to 1/32" was overkill. Then about one hour's hard pulling with a drawknife got it close to the final shape (actually, ~30 min for two of us with drawknives). Finally, a couple hours with an electric beltsander and a pneumatic random orbit sander got it near-finished. We have yet to fit the post-ends, round-over the exposed edges and install it, but we've got the hard part done. Thanks again!
Nice aside: I'd put a notice up on the Lumber board asking about sources of hardwood in New Mexico. Tom, a fellow woodworker who lives here in Santa Fe answered my request by phone ... gave me a good lead on a guy who comes through here more or less regularly with semi-loads of wood. I invited Tom to join in the fun on Saturday and he showed up and helped with the beam-cut. Nice fellow, very generous of him. Thanks, Tom. By implication, flowers to all in W5.
Here are some photos from Saturday. Unfortunately there are no action-photos of cutting, since during the cut the allocation of people to jobs was: woodworking 10, photography 0.
2 Dec 1997
Thanks for your responses re my "big plank cutting problem". I'm not sure what our final approach will be, but I'm going to try some practice hand-saw cuts and draw-knife fairing in the post cut-offs (also 6" fir), and see how the Neanderthal approach works. I'm a bit skeptical, mainly about how square I can cut/fair it. (Don't get me wrong: my great-grandad was a saw-and-adze carpenter - I've still got some of his tools and all the respect in the world for their use. I guess I'm intimidated because my spokeshave is so *tiny* compared to this beam ... lessee ... if I remove 1/8" from a 6"x20' surface that's 1.25 BF ... not so bad, but it has to be the *right* 1.25 BF. Humm.
FYI, here's an image of the arch as a MiniCAD snapshot
(click on image for 25K gif):
Thanks also for instructions on making a scale image and
plywood template. But once it's in MiniCAD, it's just as
easy to measure from the design and mark the measurements
on the wood using a square.
It worked for the 6"x16"x8' posts, anyway.
(We actually jointed one edge on a Delta DJ-15 6" jointer,
I've got the pictures to prove it!)
This drawing shows the widths to the nearest 1/32'nds every 2"
-- not that we cut the posts that well, but probably within
[-0 to +1/8"] of the pencil line on a sanded side --
(click on image to for 17K gif):
My CAD program of choice is MiniCAD. I use it on almost all my wood projects. Here, it allowed me to use a B-spline curves for the arch which are more dramatic than simple curves but provides nearly the specific strength of parabolas. A more common use is for adaptations of old furniture designs (I can't get wood in the same dimensions that Stickley did in 1900).
I'll add some photos of this arch project when able. If you have more ideas after looking at these images, either post them or e-mail me at dave@daylight.com.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Dave.